With Nvidia feeling the sting of US sanctions in China, the GPU giant has seen a bit of wiggle room for local outfits. A report from UDN claims Moore Threads and MetaX are among those prepping to cash in on the moment, filing IPO paperwork and snuffling around for more than 12 billion yuan (€1.51 billion) to fund their silicon dreams.

The plan is to use the cash to build domestic muscle against US export curbs and to shove foreign GPU heavyweights out of China's booming AI and gaming markets. Whether they manage it is another matter entirely.

The market opened up when Nvidia H20 AI accelerator was banned in China. Since then, local names like Huawei, Moore Threads and others have tried to fill the vacuum. Huawei's Ascend AI kit has already been snapped up by big names like Tencent and Baidu. Moore Threads has pushed out the MTT S80 and S70 for gamers and the MTT S4000 and S5000 for the professional crowd.

Moore Threads boss Zhang Jianzhong used to run Nvidia's China gig, and MetaX chief Chen Weiliang previously wrangled global GPU design at AMD. Talent, they’ve got. Nvidia-grade hardware, not so much.

The UDN piece noted: "With Chinese GPU firms making strides, the interest from investors has also grown, despite the significant technological gap."